writing a book is really hard work. and we're on like page six. so for anyone reading our blog who is already a published author, kudos to you and i hope we get there someday too.
as i was writing the other morning, i realized that you, our blog readers, probably have a better perspective on why we should write this book - what gives this story enough worth to be captured in a book. we're too close to it, living it each day, and aren't able to see it the same way you or our potential book readership would. and so not being able to separate myself from my marketing world, we think you'd be the perfect focus group!
so we're asking that you help us, our old or new followers. if you feel like it, just send a comment back or email us at prayforian@gmail.com with any answers to these questions:
- why do you still read our blog?
- what does our story have to offer in book form that has not already been shared by other authors?
- having followed our story through the blog, what is a piece of our story or angle of our story that you think needs to be included in a book?
- what is the attribute(s) of god that you see mostly clearly through ian's life?
- if you had the write the "mission statement" of our book, what would it be?
any of our thoughts on any of these questions would be really incredible as we try to find the direction for this project.
thank you, always, for praying.
i&l
18 comments:
i have been reading your blog for about a year now, and i keep reading because it points my eyes to jesus. the example of your marriage challenges me, as a young single woman, to think of true love, not the fake corny stuff i see in movies. i read because i see the hardship and pain of life transformed and sustained by the wonderful power of our savior. thank you.
Pray for us to know what to write you two too♥))) Please♥
I believe the story of both yours and Ian's spiritual journey through terrible circumstances is what is both so helpful and challenging. There are enough preachers in the world (many of them great ones) but as in everything...there is a large difference between practicing and preaching...we all see preaching but rarely do we see practicing as both you and Ian have done. Your story is both very real and spiritually speaks louder than any sermon. So for me, I would be reading it to see both Ian and your narrative account of what physically happened, how you reacted when news came, how ian felt lying in the bed at the hospital, interspersed with both your spiritual journey that was going on the inside...and ultimately what that conclusion was. hope that helps
-josh
Ian and Larissa,
I have been reading your blog since not long after the accident.
I am from far away, in the western corner of Australia actually.
Your story is so heartwrenching, beautiful, and challenging.
I have prayed for you and Ian many times...and I often wrestle with the question "why does this happen to good people - to faithful people?" I found myself getting annoyed with God, and it isn't even my burden...I don't even really know you.
Your FAITHFULNESS, your LOVE, your PERSERVERENCE. wow.
If you could share with us in your book like you do on your blog, how God has carried you, how you deal with the 'why do bad things happen to good people' question?
Thankyou for writing your blog...what an amazing, powerful testimony you are.
Sheridan
I've been following your story on the blog from the beginning and what really encourages me is the simple fact of God's love and care for you through your trial. It builds my faith as I read of your real struggles and the truth of God being spoken when your circumstances are screaming sadness and despair. God's gentle hand bringing strength and resolve to love Him, speaks of the power of God. He is enabling you to love and trust Him.
Simplify your project by just editing your blog to book form. It's all there: Your story, God's work in your heart, and God's sustaining grace in your life.
God has given you a story that He is using to stir others on in their own walk with the Lord. This story has great worth because God has given it a voice and has chosen you to share.
Will be praying for you!!
You both exemplify the true meaning of love... That's something worth reading about. It's more than that lovey-dovey feeling, sometimes it's your actions that matter most, and I can tell by the way you diligently care for Ian, Larissa that your love for him, and for God is great. It's also encouraging to hear your struggles, and your resolutions of those struggles, it gives encouragement to me that others feel what I feel. Mission statement: to provide a real example of a gospel centered relationship and life. I would love to read your book!
I continue to read your blog and pray for you and recommend your blog to others because it challenges and instructs me what it means, in Paul's words in 2 Cor. 6, read at our Ash Wednesday service tonight, to be "as dying, and yet, behold, we live; as punished and yet not killed; as sorrowful yet always rejoicing; as poor yet making many rich; as having nothing and yet possessing everything." There is much in our culture, that denies the reality of suffering, that makes freedom from suffering the goal and even the evidence of being a Christian. For you instead to bow in humility at being given the gift of life (albeit a different one) which no doctor thought was possible, to portray learning to surrender to gifts you would not have chosen, to refuse to doubt the faithfulness and love of the Giver, through whom daily you learn to savor sufficiency and wonder amid your pain, has great potential to instruct and encourage the church of Christ for difficult times ahead. The challenge will be, as I'm sure you feel, for it not to be a book only about you, but a testimony of faith in the face of difficulty and suffering. This is true faith, born and sustained and perfected by God. I think you have an important word of encouragement to offer.
I write a little also, and it is terrificly hard work, but rewarding and worthwhile. Sometimes the written precedes the lived, and sometimes the lived finds a new life in the written. May God bless your writing, and teach you much more of Himself lived out in the process.
Hi I still read your blog as I'm touched by your faithfulness and honesty and I want to know what happens. Reading your story helps me to see how God is answering prayer even if not in the way I'd like or expect.
What I feel you add that others don't is that you are both very honest about your struggles and doubts. It doesn't read like 2 christians living a victorious life in a false cheesey way. It's honest and humble and inspiring the way you are trusting Him and muddling through anyway and then you do more than muddle!
You inspire me to serve God better
I started reading your blog after you were married and Lydia Jane did a blog post on your wedding.
I read every post on your blog that day and cried my eyes out, Praised Jesus, and just was in awe of your story.
A story that conveys what true love really is. I have never seen it so beautifully portrayed than with you and Ian.
you are brave, and selfless, and such an example to all of us out there- single or married. There are so many times where I am just pointed back to Christ because of your Christ-likness. you and Ian both. I get so much encouragement coming to your blog every time you post.
I will pray for you as you write the book-I know it must be a challenge...but oh what a testimony you have!
-Beth
I read your blog because I want to know that love is real. It reminds me that it is possible to love. That it is the most impossibly possible thing in the world. "'Is it easy to love God?' asks an old author. 'It is easy,' he replies, 'to those who do it.'"
I have followed your blog for a couple years now at least and am amazed at the grace of God in your lives. Your story is so very beautiful, heartrendingly so, so deep and pure it must be told the world over. It makes me take a long look at love and want to love like that. Reading your posts is a holy moment in my day because I'm drawn to Christ in a powerful way. Thanks for writing and living the way of the cross!! I think you two can offer a personal perspective to the book that no one else can- the sweetness and the sorrow.
I agree with what Josh wrote above in his reply. I still read your blog because it encourages, challenges and refocuses me on my Lord. It is refreshing to see a young couple with a Christ-centered Gospel instead of a man-centered one. I'd like the book to show you as being human with true feelings which sometimes glorify God and sometimes don't...and explanations, fleshed out in detail, of how He changes your thinking and desires when they are against Him, His truth and what you believe and hold to be true.
Wendy in MD
I started reading your blog around the time of your wedding. I'm an occasional reader who returns here to visit with friends--family friends--whom I've never met: people who remind me, when life seems very hard, that beauty, and faithfulness, and love still exist in this world, and will forever exist in the world to come.
"I had fainted unless I had believed to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living." (Ps. 27:13) Thank you for showing the goodness of the Lord in your lives. It's a great reminder to see the same in mine.
"To appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that he might be glorified." (Is. 61:3).
Oh wow-
Where to start. I started reading your blog last night. I feel like I am just now discovering that iphones exist. Like it is something that has obviously going on for a while but I've been oblivious. So obviously I am a new reader. As I read through those first several posts I found myself wanted to pray for Ian in those moments, that have obviously come and gone.
The thing that is so amazing is that you perservere. BOTH of you. Your admiration and value for each other. You prefer one another. It is obvious. And while I could say my marriage is do different from yours, I think what people could gain is seeing that it really isn't. Like you said yesterday, you still do dishes and laundry- but just have different challenges. I think writing so that people can relate (which you have already done) in places of frustrations, disagreements, joys, questions of future would be helpful. All the things I listed previously all marriages face, just differently in every situation. But God will use you mightily. God has a story in you.
Bless you and Ian as you minister in this way and start on this journey of writing a book.
Praying for you guys!
Love,
Robin
When I watched your video in my email from Desiring God, the word that came to mind, was "Steadfast Love" Thank you for sharing your life with the World via the internet! I added your url to my google reader and will be praying for you both as you come to mind.
Because of HIS gracious steadfast Love,
Evie
Oh! I'm so glad you are writing a book! Please don't stop! Jesus is using you powerfully to put my perspective back into true focus!
If there is anything you have to offer in a book it is honesty, frailty (in the sense of an obvious required dependance), & life according to eternital perspective that just knocks over all the vanity this world claims is SO impressive!
And most of all, Jesus is using you today in my life to remind me that this relationship with Him means that I am the mess & He is the artist...I have nothing to offer, & it's SUPPOSED to be that way ...HE IS EVERYTHING, i am nothing... And you are reminding me to rest in that!
Thanks! :)
And I am eagerly anticipating the book ...I just started reading your blog after the desiring God video you put together, so new to your blog, but am reading back through because it is just so great to hear the day-by-day-ness of God's glory in your lives!
Press on, dear sister!
I started reading today and when I am finished, I will start again and really read what you have written, especially about faith and suffering and heaven. I feel God trying to speak to me and I am ready to listen.
- I read this blog and pray for you both because it grounds me in truth, namely, the reality of God, the sustaining grace of God through Christ, and that we are just pilgrims passing through.
- I haven't read many popular Christian books because they haven't enriched my walk with the Lord. But I believe your story, especially the 'real,' spiritual wrestling that you and Ian have worked through will be of much practical encouragement to many. I'm looking forward to reading more of Ian's writing especially.
- I see God's sovereignty over our confused suffering for 'the saving of many lives' (Gen 50:20). I see God's sustaining grace to endure 'all things through him who gives (us) strength.' I see the 'good works God prepared in advance for us to do' are not always what we have been told they should be.
- Mission Statement: To encourage the saints by presenting a biblical, real-life picture of what it means to live in the hope of heaven.
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